Roommates
by BestSkeptic
Summary: Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger are roommates after the war. The mortal enemies somehow manage to help each other forgive if not forget. Character death, mentions of suicide, and other adult themes. Oneshot.


**A/N: **This took me a really long time to write. I have no idea why; it's only six pages, but I found it emotionally and energetically draining. Anyway, I'll warn you that there's character death, suicide attempts, and other mature themes here. Have fun, or as much fun as you can have with an angst fic.

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People were talk all the time. Just talk. Never action. Ever since the war ended, people were just talk.

They didn't talk much for roommates. Only late at night, which was the only time they were together anyway; their living space was so small that it only comfortably housed two twin beds, so sleep was just about the only thing they could do in it. The walls were a cold, uninviting white–if they could afford paint, they would probably never come to an agreement on color anyway. She considered his taste in silver and green utterly repulsive, as did he her affinity for scarlet and gold. They sometimes joked that if they mixed all the colors together, they could create an atmosphere just as fucked up as their actual situation.

Live with someone you love long enough and you'll hate everything about that person. His insignificant quirks, her preferred side of the bed, the way you cringe at the most minutely annoying mispronunciation of a word. _Cadavers, cadavers, it's fucking cah-DAHV-ers, Ron, that's what you saw in the field. _But live with someone you hate long enough and you'll begin to notice the good in him, the generosity in her. Not because the more pleasant qualities are particularly prevalent, but because you're deliberately searching for them. Because eventually, it would just make things a whole hell of a lot easier if you two just got along.

Funny thing is, when you start searching for the good, it all breaks the barricade and tunnels out, and you start to wonder why you didn't see it in the first place, but quickly remember the strength and vitriol of the original blockade. And then you can be far more candid with your enemies than you ever could with your friends.

The old proverb went, "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." Oh, if the ancients could see her now. Her enemy was sleeping in the bed right next to her.

But he wasn't really sleeping; it seemed he never slept anymore. Nor did she, in all honesty, because paranoia ran deep, especially after all they'd encountered. "You've lost weight," he grunted, face turned firmly up at the ceiling, and an onlooker might have thought he had directed his comment to no one in particular. But she was the only one in the room, and, as far as she knew, he hadn't spoken to himself in that manner before.

"Your hair is duller. It happens."

"There was probably a time I would have been deeply insulted at that. You should be more sensitive."

"You should be less hypocritical."

"Would it be hypocritical to hex you for that?"

She snorted. "And how would you go about hexing me without your wand?"

"I could–"

"Or would you just channel your precious Voldemort through that ridiculous snake scar of yours?"

"That's not funny, Granger."

"I'm sorry. I didn't–"

"Just go to sleep."

But she didn't. And he didn't. They lay in the dark, alone with each other, staring up at the blank ceiling that would have looked oh-so-welcoming with a few gold or silver stripes.

She told Harry in his visits that she would knock some sense into Malfoy eventually. He'd just stared at her sadly, bearing his own burden. The time between his visits had lengthened considerably since the time after they'd first won the war. He hadn't been to see her in months, it seemed, whereas at the beginning he'd come almost daily. There was a time when there had been rumours that he would move down the hall. Now it seemed he'd either changed his mind or found convenience elsewhere. She couldn't blame him; what self-respecting wizard would want to see the reminder of his life's onus so often, and the man who had nearly destroyed it? As it were, Draco was never too hospitable when Harry came to visit.

Last time Harry visited, Draco sat on the edge of his bed and stared into the nothingness of a wall. Must've been a generous three hours, and all he did was stare. Didn't even acknowledge Harry's presence. But the time before that, he'd thrown a temper tantrum of apocalyptic proportions–levitating beds and all; they never had much furniture. Scared the hell out of the Boy Who Lived Again, and he'd stared death straight in its disfigured face. It was probably the reason for which he took his merry time in returning to their apartment. She didn't know which personality scared him more: irate Draco or docile Draco. She didn't know which personality scared _her _more. Because when a bird stops flying, there's always the question of whether its wings were clipped, and if so, _who the fuck _clipped them. The less important question is why. Everybody knew why. She never did figure out who fixed the giant headboard-shaped hole in the wall.

"You know I can't sleep; why don't you just tell me to let it be?"

"Please, spare me." There was an expectant pause before his singsong sigh. "As if I have a choice," he muttered to himself. _Wait for it, wait for it..._

"When's the last time you really slept?"

"Granger," he grunted, and rolled his pillow over his head. Through the dark she could trace the outline of his body.

"Oh, quit it, it's a valid question."

"Fifth year."

"That long?"

"You asked."

"Seventh year, for me."

"I didn't ask."

"Well, then, you're a poor conversationalist."

"Malfoys never–" he stopped himself in time. "I am _not _a poor conversationalist."

And he wasn't. He would go on for hours until you got him to say something of any substance. What he felt with Dumbledore so weak at the end of his wand. What it was to kill his father, to watch his mother die. He never had as much to say about those things as he did Quidditch or her own inadequacies.

"You have quite an unusual way of showing it, then," she mocked, a tight smirk forming in the corners of her lips.

"It's," he turned to look at a clock on his night stand, and bright green auras screamed back at him. "Four in the fucking morning, so _hex _me. I doubt even Dumbledore could have carried out a coherent conversation at this hour."

"He would have if he were so inclined."

"These aren't war times anymore, Granger." She would have responded immediately, but he interrupted her thoughts with annoyed whispers in French. With her limited knowledge of the language, as learned from him, she picked out the words "father," "naive," and "bitch."

"I hadn't heard," she drawled sardonically. "You know, it really is quite rude to speak to people in any language but their vernacular."

He turned to face her, with at least five feet separating the two. "You know," he began, "it really is quite rude to keep people awake in the middle of the night."

Her eyes narrowed. "If you can sleep, be my guest."

"_Thank _you."

Her silence lasted a glorious seven seconds. "But since I know you can't, you may as well humour me."

"I would be able to sleep if you would shut the hell up for once, you insufferable–"

"Yes, yes, insufferable know-it-all, is that it?"

"There are still things you do not know."

"I keep a neat little list of those exact things on the wall above the headboard. I'll know them by the time we're through."

"And _when, _exactly,will that be? I'm dying to know."

"Not soon enough." She paused pensively. "Actually, I hadn't given it much thought."

And the truth of the matter was that she thought she might stay with Malfoy for a while, if not forever. It was reasonable, it was convenient, and they seemed to complement each other well, despite the occasional spat. They bickered like a married couple, anyway. She recognised the disheartening irony in the thought; she'd always pictured herself married to Ron, not involved in a pseudo-engagement to Draco Malfoy, of all people. It hadn't always been that way.

They weren't on the best terms when they first ended up there, to say the least. Granted, she'd been grateful for his conversion to the Order, but it was a grudging gratefulness. What they affectionately called his "long time in coming" ultimately cost them their dearest member, their only hope–Albus Dumbledore. But in a way, his death had inspired a new hope: Harry Potter. The three friends skipped school to learn an instruction they viewed far more important than any they would receive in school. They were fighting with the big boys, now. Weeks of tireless dueling and conspiring gave them the skills they'd never dreamed of having–the skills they needed to win. By October, Hermione had adjusted every advanced spell they'd mastered to each of their strengths, and they had every reason to believe they were invincible. But kids their age, on the cusp of adulthood, did not need super powers to believe their invincibility. No adolescents see an end in sight. Death by a killing curse? It would happen to somebody else. Death was not a reality for them, then; it was a distant idea, a foreign musing to which they would attend later. Then, it fell into the category that included aliens from outer space, robots, and fifth dimensions.

They lived in that blissful ignorance for too short a time. Soon Death reared its ugly head, and kept rearing. Legends fell, and with them, destinies were demolished. Finally, Death became Voldemort, and in the process, it ripped Ronald Weasley from her hands and from the grasp of her previously picturesque future. That Draco Malfoy, _lowly _Draco Malfoy, had converted on account of Severus Snape's heroism and prodding bore little significance, now that she'd lost the only thing that ever mattered.

All her efforts were pointless. Each and every act of selflessness in the war amounted to nothing. Better to live in a world of fascist pigs and racists, ruled by the dark lord, she reasoned, than to live in this one without the one she loved. What good was good and justice when it could not be shared? And how selfish of him, in all his valor, not to take her with him. Ever the analyst, she debated with herself the meaning of death, and its following. If there were some form of life after death, then death would reunite her with Ron. But if death was the state of not existing, then it would be better to not exist than to exist with a feeling of such heartbreak. Either way, death was looking like a pretty good option.

Unfortunately, or, rather, fortunately for her in retrospect, her attempts at achieving such an option failed; the muggle means were too ghastly even for her, for magic rarely offered a clean alternative. The next best thing was moving to her apartment, where she lived aimlessly from day to day in a shroud of disconsolacy, not eating, not sleeping, not really caring at all. Did it matter that it was the fifth of June, and somewhere people were happy, and celebrating? No, a thousand times no. The sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth–yes, the calendar was changing, and supposedly time was passing, but she certainly couldn't feel it. And if feeling meant experiencing, then time wasn't passing at all.

The flame of ambition that once burned within her was now a pathetic lackluster spark, if that. When Draco moved in, he incited within her anger. And anger was a better emotion than none at all. He ignited a flame–no, dropped an atomic bomb–that melted the numbness that had been her mind for weeks. If she had something for which to live, it was ensuring that Draco Malfoy knew that cowards like him paled in comparison to lost war heroes. If anything, she could juxtapose Draco with Ron and find a measure of bitter happiness.

Trouble was, he fought back. And he had war stories, too. She could respect that. And she realised, eventually, that it would make it a hell of a lot easier for them to live if they could just get along. It came after the realisation that she did want to live, and she did want to live easily. Because it was better to live with only a memory than not to exist at all, because life was the only thing she knew, and she was not one to throw in the towel just because something got a little more difficult than she'd expected.

But where she had sadness, he had demons. With all the things for which he was responsible, she couldn't imagine how he hadn't gone completely mad. Dumbledore was only the tip of the iceberg. Here was a man who knew what it was like to say the Cruciatus curse and _mean _it. To have a burning desire to watch someone writhe in pain, to torture a witch or wizard until incapacitation. To cause a person such discomfort to a point where he'll never speak again. And for what? For a father he was destined to murder?

The death of evil was not so glorious when it was by your wand, when it was your flesh and blood, when you were still trying to discern whether it was truly evil or just misguided. When you still loved it so much you would die for it. How could you kill it? How could you take any life, when it had such inherent worth? He couldn't stomach the taking of something that was so much bigger than him, but he did it. And then the end didn't matter so much as his means. And it's how he ended up a broken man, rooming with Hermione Granger, of all people. But she helped him. She helped him to forgive himself, and he supposed he helped her to do the same. It was comforting, almost.

"It was a joke, right? That you'd want me to leave, I mean."

He sighed and waited a long time before answering her. Seconds, minutes, hours–she didn't know, and frankly, her care for such a measure was lost. "Yes, Granger, it was a joke."

"Good. I like being with you."

"Mhhmm."

She sighed contentedly. It was good to be appreciated, to have her presence desired, even in a place where there was no choice to leave. They weren't allowed much–bedframes with dull, rounded corners instead of sharp edges, white sheets, white walls, white clothing, a paper cup of water every night. They didn't have much, but what they did have–a sense of understanding, a mutual affection–was more important than anything they missed.


End file.
